Devall Travels

The original plan for Easter was to spend the day in Belgium with the GS Club UK at the GS weekend at Kasterlee. As it was only a week after coming back from the US, I had to cancel those plans. But the bike needed a 20000km service before the Czech Trip... and so I decided to see about a service in France and use the ferry ticket for that instead. I searched on the BMW France site for a dealership in the north of France. Purely to see if it was cheaper than in the UK. In the end I booked in to Europ' Touring in Arras. In France both 6000 miles and 12000 miles services are about 40% cheaper than the UK. Even with the cost of a cheap crossing over or under the channel it would be cheaper. And as I was less than happy at the standard of the service done at SPC at 6000 miles, plus the place was in the middle of nowhere and had no loan bike on offer (to me at least!) despite buying the GS from them! SO, a dealership in a town had to be better. Patric...

Claire and I first went to the US together in March 2004 for her 50th birthday and stayed only for a week.  We packed a few trips in. We stayed with her cousin George in Speonk, Long Island.  The pictures in the album are out of order for some reason as they were taken (mostly) on a Nikon Coolpix camera that I bought after we had arrived. Doh.  We had booked a rental car and had a Toyota Camry for a few days and then George lent us his Crown Vic for the rest of the trip. It was blue and with the small 4.7L engine. The Manhattan pix were taken on a bus trip we did from Long Island with another of Claire's cousins, this one from Ireland but domiciled in the US. It was freezing and the view from the top of the Empire State Building was too cloudy to see much!  Perhaps we need to go back another time for a better look? UPDATE: Sadly, this was before Blogger or at least before I knew about Blogger and all my posts went on my Geocities website. Then ...

My first trip to the US was in December 1991. The trip was just as I had been made redundent and I took the opportunity to to go Miami and see out my job at Burger King HQ. I was lucky enough to stay with a work colleague in her condo near Coral Gables.  I was lucky when she was at work to use her car, and for a week, her neighbour's Kawasaki. Trips included the Keys and up to Sarasota and Sanibel. KZ750 on way to the Keys I have only a few photos of the trip and have managed to scan a few. Sunset Key West The days I went down the Key West and the place was full and buzzing. Back in '91 Gay Pride wasn't as public and "out there" as it is now.